MASS MEDIA SHAPE OUR PRESIDENTIAL IMAGES

In warm weather, John Quincy Adams, our sixth president, customarily went skinny-dipping in the Potomac River. The first American woman to become a professional journalist, Anne Royall, knew of Adams’ 5 a.m. swims. After being refused interviews with Adams many times, she went to the river, gathered his clothes, and sat on them until she had her interview from the president, who spoke to her while chin-deep in the water. Before this, no female had interviewed a president.

Until Abraham Lincoln, most Americans had no idea what our presidents looked and sounded like. Nowadays, with the colossal outreach of mass media, so many of our hopes, dreams and ideals are inextricably bound up with the persona of the American president. Mass media – from portraiture to sculpture, from currency to stamps, from literature to newspapers, from the telephone to radio to television – extend the images and sounds of our chief executives and embedded them in our national consciousness.

One of the best known of American poems begins:

O Captain! my Captain!

Our fearful trip is done;

The ship has weathered every rack,

The prize we sought is won.

In this poem by Walt Whitman, the captain is Abraham Lincoln.

Lincoln is the president most portrayed in the movies, including the just released film “Lincoln,” starring Daniel Day-Lewis and Sally Field. Two of our presidents have actually acted in dramatic films:

Grover Cleveland was our first presidential movie star. In 1895, Cleveland agreed to be filmed signing a bill into law. The movie was called “A Capital Courtship,” and it was a big hit on the Lyceum circuit.

Ronald Reagan was our only president to have been a professional actor, appearing in 54 Hollywood films. That number might have reached 55, but Reagan was refused a part in the film version of “The Best Man” because he “did not look presidential enough.”

Divorced from movie star Jane Wyman, Reagan and his second wife, Nancy Davis, appeared opposite each other in the movie “Hellcats of the Navy.” Movie star William Holden was the best man at the Reagans’ wedding.

In one of his films, “The Winning Team,” Reagan played Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Grover Cleveland Alexander. Thus, a president played the role of a character with a president’s name.

Conversely, an actor who was not a president but whose name consists of those of three presidents played the movie role of a president. Megastar Harrison Ford (there were two presidents Harrison) played President James Marshall in the movie “Air Force One.” Ronald Reagan and Harrison Ford are joined in another way: Harrison Ford starred in the early “Star Wars” films, and Reagan was a staunch proponent of the Star Wars anti-missile defense system.

Along with John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan was our most television-savvy president. Asked if he had been nervous debating Jimmy Carter in 1980, Reagan smiled, “No, not at all. I’ve been on the same stage with John Wayne.” At the end of one of those debates, Reagan made sure to walk across the dais to shake hands with Carter – to show that Reagan was clearly the taller, and hence the more commanding, of the two. In fact, the taller candidate has won the presidency more than twice as often as has the shorter man.

In his televised presidential debate in 1984 against his considerably younger opponent, Walter Mondale, Reagan quipped, “I will not make age an issue in this campaign. I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent’s youth and inexperience.” Mondale joined the ensuing audience laughter, but his pinched smile was that of a defeated candidate.